


I used to fear ghosts

by EscapingReality51



Category: Home and Away (TV)
Genre: Anxiety, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, It All Ends Well, Pregnancy, but Bianca and Heath have some stuff to work through, discussion of past trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-20 14:01:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30005988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EscapingReality51/pseuds/EscapingReality51
Summary: Bianca is pregnant, but the memories of Rocco are overwhelming.orBianca has got some stuff to work through while she is pregnant again.
Relationships: Heath Braxton/Bianca Scott-Braxton





	I used to fear ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> A few caveats before you read this story:   
> 1\. I am not a doctor. Most of the medical stuff in here comes from a quick google search, so be kind.   
> 2\. I have never been pregnant. My descriptions of pregnancy may not be all that accurate, meaning...  
> 3\. I have never lost a child. Grief is different for everyone and I'm just writing what I imagine would be Bianca's struggles as she confronts what happened with Rocco.   
> 4\. I've written this in a two-day writing spree and haven't had a chance to edit. 
> 
> Enjoy!

It isn’t until the baby starts kicking that the panic sets in.

The first time it happens is in the dead of night. It wakes her, shocks her out of sleep and she feels tears in her eyes before she knows what is really going on. 

“Babe?” Heath’s voice is heavy with sleep, slow and deep beside her. 

“Something’s -” she starts, sitting up and putting a hand to her stomach. “Something’s happening, Heath, what’s happening.” 

“Babe,” he says, immediately alert. “Talk to me.”

“The baby, it’s -” 

It isn’t particularly hard, but with her hand on her stomach she can feel it even more. It’s so real, more real than anything she has felt since Rocco was still with them and, despite the pure joy that courses through her, a sob breaks free. 

“Heath, it’s kicking.” 

She can hear the smile on his face as he wraps an arm around her, pulling her to his chest. Without a word, she takes his hand and places it on her stomach, on the left side, and he kisses her forehead. 

She switches on the light and Heath’s smile is blinding, his cheeks covered in tears. 

“It’s so strong,” he manages, his eyes wide and so full of happiness it almost hurts. “Our kid’s got some strong kicks, eh?”

She smiles, a laugh bubbling in her chest. She can still feel it, an erratic pulse of baby legs that brings back memories she had forgotten; Heath holding his hand to her stomach on a beach all those years ago, promising it would all be alright, being there for her more than she had ever anticipated. She doesn’t know when she started seeing him for who he really was, but a part of her reckons it was on that beach, with their unborn son kicking. 

They sit there, face to face, nose to nose, taking it in while their child kicks up a storm and Bianca feels more than she could ever have imagined. It’s their kid. 

Then the light goes off and Heath shuffles back down under the duvet, kissing her cheek, shoulder, arm, and hand while pulling her down with him. 

“Get some rest,” he whispers against her skin. 

But when his breathing grows heavy and it’s just her, staring at the ceiling above them, she feels like it is falling on top of her. Her breaking is practiced, a four-count in and a four-count out, like the counsellor said. Even then, she doesn’t get a wink of sleep. 

The next morning Heath is inescapably happy. 

He brings her breakfast in bed and a soothing tea she likes, he gets Darcy off to school and gets Harvey ready for daycare and she can’t get up. 

The baby isn’t kicking. 

Her hand shakes a little when she brings the tea to her lips.

A week passes, and it happens again and again. Every time it does her chest feels like it will cave in, break and shatter, leave her bleeding out. 

It happens in a meeting with a teacher, and it takes everything in her to keep from hyperventilating. It happens with Harley in her arms and it just makes her hold him that much closer while she lets a tear trickle down her cheek. 

It happens in the shower, and she ends up sitting on the shower floor, arms wrapped around her knees with lukewarm water pummeling down until Heath finds her and switches it off. He kneels in front of her, brings her eyes up to his with a gentle hand on her cheek. 

He looks so worried. 

“Are you cold?” he asks, and she only has to nod once.

He quickly has her wrapped in a towel before he shuffles over next to her and she breaks, just a little. 

“I felt it again,” she whispers. Her voice sounds wretched. 

“What?” he asks. 

“The baby… kicking.” 

The arm wrapped around her tightens just a little bit, and he brings his hand up to her wet hair. 

“Babe, it’s a good thing. Our baby’s healthy,” he says and his smile makes her stomach churn. 

“I know that, but then it stops, and I -” she starts, but the ending of that sentence is too difficult to say aloud.

His smile falters, and she presses her face to his shoulder to hide the tears. 

She’s been going to counselling ever since they got back to the city. Sometimes Heath comes along too. It is supposed to help, and on some level she knows that it has, but this feels too big to solve. 

Heath holds her hand as they sit there together, and she tries to explain with words what feels bigger than them. 

“I just… I can’t help thinking that it’s going to end badly again,” she says quietly. “The baby kicking just reminds me of what I could lose.” 

Heath’s hand squeezes hers. 

Maybe it does help. At least spoken, it doesn’t feel as big. 

At the next scan, they find out it’s a girl. 

Bianca doesn’t know what it is with Braxtons and guessing the sex of her baby, but as soon as the doctor tells them she feels a surge of joy that she can’t contain. 

Heath presses a kiss to her lips and she smiles at him, and the picture of her future slowly crystallises further. 

When the doctor tells her that everything looks great, that her blood pressure is low and her vital signs are great, and when they hear that little heartbeat going strong, it is almost enough to assuage her. 

It does, for a time. 

The baby grows, and the panic fades with every day that passes without complication. 

Heath starts looking at her like she hung the moon, and she remembers how it was the first time, how he looked at her then like she was the best thing that ever happened to him. How much he changed when Rocco started existing. 

How much she loved him for it.

He does more than his share of the heavy lifting around the house, even with dinner and cleaning, and her love for him grows even greater than she could have expected. 

One evening she sits by the kitchen island, a glass of water in her hand while Heath does the dishes and Darcy puts Harley to sleep. 

“I’ve been thinking about names,” she says. 

That makes him put down the dishes and turn around. 

“Got anything good yet?” he asks. 

Bianca tries to keep a straight face as she says: “What about Cheryl?” 

Heath’s mouth falls open and he puts a hand up to say no when he spots the smile she can’t hide. 

“That’s not funny, I can’t have another Cheryl asking me for money.”

“I would be afraid to call our baby Cheryl, just for the loving memories I have of your mother.” 

Heath tosses a dish towel over his shoulder and walks over to sit beside her. “But you have thought about it?” he asks. “Seriously?” 

Bianca nods, and the kiss Heath pulls her in for is so soft it almost makes her teary-eyed.

“Do you remember the day we brought Rocco home?” she says. 

The expression on Heath’s face is a perfect combination of grief and absolute affection. 

“Of course I do.” His face softens. “That was the first time you told me you loved me.” 

He’s got his hand on her arm, and it helps just a little bit. 

“You said you would still like me if I got fat,” she starts, but Heath drops his head to his chest, laughing. 

“I did, didn’t I,” he says. 

“Well, we’re about to find out,” she quips back. 

Heath looks up at her and there’s no doubt in her mind what he thinks. 

“Bianca, you are still the most beautiful woman to me, and this pregnancy hasn’t changed that.”

“I’m not going to get smaller in the next few weeks,” she says jokingly. 

Heath places his forehead to hers, and he smells of that new cologne she got him for his birthday mixed with something she recognises that is completely him. 

“I don’t care how big you’re going to get, you are having our kid and I love you more for every day that passes.” 

Perhaps not so oddly enough, she believes him. 

They kiss, and it deepens more quickly than either of them can control. 

It’s been a long time since it went much further than a few heated kisses. Doctor’s orders after all, especially after her pre-eclampsia the last time. Not that Bianca has felt up to much with a beachball of a stomach and her mind preoccupied, but this time it is different. 

They grip and pull at each other and before either of them know what’s happening, Heath is standing between her legs and Bianca can’t help but tilt her head and shiver when Heath does the same. 

A sudden cough has them springing apart like embarrassed teenagers. 

“Come on, I thought this would stop with Bianca being pregnant,” Darcy says, arms crossed over her chest. “Not in the kitchen, remember?” 

Heath looks down at Bianca, and they both start laughing.

“You’ve never actually caught us doing anything,” Heath says.

Darcy just rolls her eyes. “Enough to scar me for life.” 

“Darce, we just got a bit carried away,” Heath says. “We’re sorry.” 

Darcy just walks past them to the sink to put the kettle on. “Harley’s asleep,” she says. 

Bianca lets out a long breath. “Thank you, Darce.” 

Darcy ends up making enough water for two before quickly removing herself to her room, leaving Heath and Bianca with more silence than is good for them. 

“We shouldn’t have done that,” Heath says. 

“I know.” 

Heath walks over, kisses her more softly. 

“I hope you aren’t regretting all of this,” Bianca says. 

Heath shakes his head before pulling her in for a hug. “The doctor said that with Rocco being born preterm, it would be dangerous.”

“Don’t you miss it?” The question stumbles out of her before she can stop it. 

“What, miss special cuddles with my wife?” he asks. 

She nods. 

“Of course I do.”

Bianca feels that old insecurity creeping back up, the indiscretion that brought them Harley, and she pulls him closer. 

“That doesn’t mean I’m not willing to wait for our baby to be born and then for however long it takes for you to be ready again.” 

Quietly, against the nook where his neck meets his shoulder, she whispers: “No barmaids?”

He holds her tighter. “No barmaids.”

Heath brings home a cot, and Bianca almost explodes. 

“You can’t just buy these things without consulting me!”

They have agreements about yelling at home - as long as the children are home, they keep it to a minimum, as much as the two of them can. Now, it’s the middle of the day so it’s just the two of them, and that means it’s a no holds barred shouting match. 

“We needed a cot and you’re not exactly walking around doing all these things, are you?” Heath yells back.

“Of course I’m not, I’m carrying our baby.”

Heath runs a hand over his face. “I know you are, and I wanted to do this for you. I thought this would be a nice thing to do.” 

Bianca stares at it; the box is much larger than what she could reasonably carry, and she knows it is a wonderful thing he has done, but her stomach is in knots. 

She knows that brand. There’s a tab open in her phone going through which cots are the safest and she knows where this one ranks. 

“Did you even check how safe it is? How soft the mattress is, and have you seen the bumpers on the sides?” Bianca says, pointing at the features on the box. 

Heath freezes. “What’re you saying? That I don’t know what’s safe for our kid?” 

Bianca sighs because no, of course not. She says as much. 

Heath walks over and holds both of her arms with his hands. “Then what is it?” 

“I -” she starts, but the fear is taking over again. 

“Bianca,” Heath says. 

He looks at her like he has realised what the problem is, and what is making her breathing laboured. 

“Mattress softness is a risk, and it needs to be a breathable one. Stuffed animals and pillows are risks, bumpers on the sides are risks,” she says, rattling off statistical information like she knows it by heart because she does. She has spent countless nights awake glued to her phone, reading about all the separate features a cot can have, and whether it increases or decreases the risk of… 

“SIDS,” Heath finally says. 

Bianca nods, and Heath wraps his arms around her. 

“I’ll take it back, we’ll get a different one, yeah?” he asks. 

It’s not something they talk about, that hole that they both have in their hearts, the one neither of them has ever truly recovered from. There is something about it that is too intangible, and they don’t have to talk to know without a shadow of a doubt that they feel the exact same way. 

They are both broken, left so by the grief of losing something that should never be lost. Bianca pulls him closer. They seem to hold each other together despite the broken bits. 

Heath ends up calling in sick at the gym and they spend the afternoon picking out the right cot for them to have this time around. 

Bianca just hopes it will help stop her worrying. 

Pain wakes her. 

A pain in the pit of her stomach, in her lower back, spreading and pulsing through her. 

Heath is awake in an instant.

Time passes in a blur of fright and pain, the only true measure of the minutes passing are the deep breaths Bianca is taking, in and out. Nothing else is real. 

Darcy comes in, promises to take care of Harley, but Bianca can’t speak. It’s too early. She’s only 37 weeks along, it’s not supposed to happen already, it can’t be happening. 

Heath kisses her forehead before getting the bag they’ve already packed and getting her out of bed. 

Somehow they manage to get her down to the car and before she knows it they are at the hospital. 

Tests are done, her blood pressure is taken, but a quick examination shows that nothing’s happened. The main event hasn’t kicked into gear. 

The baby is fine. Bianca has just got Braxton-Hicks contractions. 

False labour pains. 

Heath grins the entire drive home, with no end to the joking. Of course something causing her pain is called Braxton. Bianca punches him on the arm, but when their eyes catch for a second in the rear-view mirror, he’s smiling so much it she can’t help but smile back. 

“She’s fine,” he says. 

Her hand finds his on the gear stick. 

“Not long now,” she says. 

He shakes his head. 

Emma arrives just over two weeks later, a bundle of joy and smiles that has everyone enchanted. Darcy can’t stop smiling, and Heath’s eyes are so full of love for both Emma and Bianca that is hurts, just a little. 

Not more than labour did, of course. 

They stay in the hospital overnight, under observation, to make sure there are no complications. Bianca falls asleep not long after they bring Emma in to her room, and after a nap she wakes to find Heath sitting next to her with Emma in a glass cot on wheels at his side. 

Heath’s got her hand in his, and he isn’t letting go.

“Emma, is she -” Bianca starts but Heath cuts her off. 

“She’s fine,” he says. “Just closing her eyes.”

Bianca calms, at least enough to lie back down. 

“How are you feeling?” he asks.

“Like I just pushed a human out of me,” she says. 

Heath grins. “You were amazing, babe.” 

“Yeah?” she asks.

“Yeah,” he says. 

They share a kiss, and Emma interrupts with a small sound that melts Bianca’s heart. 

“It’s amazing,” he says, placing a hand on Emma all bundled up. “I never really thought it would happen, you know?” 

Bianca knows. 

It has been nine months of near-terror for her. Now it’s going to get worse before it truly gets better, she knows that, but at least Emma is here now. The cot is set up by their bed, and counselling has tried to teach her ways that she can make sure she doesn’t let her trauma over Rocco get the better of her. 

“Yeah,” he says. “I love you so much.” 

“I love you too,” she says. 

She reaches out and Heath moves Emma closer. Bianca feels the chest rising and falling and it settles something deep within her. The trauma is still there but this time has been so different, so easy compared to the first time. 

She will still have sleepless nights and panic when Emma is being quiet, but on some level she knows that she can only do her best. Emma is as much of a fighter as Rocco was, and Emma has been dealt a better hand. 

The doctors arrive and Heath stays by her side throughout, just like she knows he will. 

When she looks up at the ceiling now, she can drift off more easily than she thought she would. 

  
  
  


epilogue

Emma grins up at them with her small birthday hat on, her hand demolishing the small bowl of food in front of her while Bianca enjoys a slice of cake and Heath plays with Harley. 

It’s been a quiet birthday - Brax and Ricky came by with Casey, and him and Harley are becoming fast friends. Darcy’s on the floor next to her father now, and Bianca looks around at the family they have built, they have cultivated and feels nothing but pride. 

It doesn’t take long for Harley to get tired and for Heath to put him to bed while Darcy helps Bianca clean. 

When Heath comes back out he walks straight to Bianca, wrapping his arms around her and pressing his stomach to her back, enveloping her in a warm hug. 

“We did it,” he whispers against her ear. “We’re here.” 

Darcy glances at them and gets the hint. “I’ll give Emma a bath,” she says, and as soon as she is gone Bianca turns around in Heath’s arms. Their foreheads touch and then their noses, and it grounds her. 

“I miss him,” she whispers. 

Heath lets out a long breath and hums in agreement. 

“I miss him too,” he says. “He would have been such a great older brother. He would be looking out for her, keeping away any idiots when she gets older.” 

Bianca smiles at the thought. The grief ebbs and flows but on days like this, there’s a happiness that comes with remembering Rocco. It doesn’t make the pain any less, but it helps just a little.

“It’s been a good day though, hasn’t it?” Heath asks.

It truly had been. 

She pulls him closer and they kiss, long and deep. A small tug at the nape of his neck, a nip at his lower lip, and it blossoms into something more. A promise of what’s to come, later, when they have sorted out the kitchen and the living room. A part of their relationship that has always worked, and has come back after the pregnancy despite three children. 

Ricky is a wonderful friend and babysitter. 

They break apart and start the not-so-quick work of cleaning up after Emma’s first birthday, and the silence isn’t just comfortable, it is joyous. 

They’re here. 

The silence is broken when Emma starts crying, and Darcy hands her over to Bianca. 

“Come here, little one,” she says, holding Emma up to her shoulder. 

Bianca's heart swells as Emma slowly quietens down, and grabs at her hair. So far, it is all going okay. She takes a deep breath as she rocks Emma back and forth. There's no panic anymore, not really. 

This time, everything did end up alright.

**Author's Note:**

> If you read this, thank you so so much. I'm escapingreality51 on tumblr, if you want to come and say hi. If not, leave a kudos or a comment, it would be greatly appreciated.


End file.
